Saturday, January 10, 2015

DAKAR, Senegal (NYT) — A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more.

The blast inflicted devastating damage on shoppers at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, the shopping hub in a city that is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. The explosion, witnessed by dozens of people, represented a new tactic in the Islamists’ campaign with their decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber. [...]

“It’s a little girl,” said the hospital official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of his position. “The body is beyond recognition, but from the face you can see it’s a young person. A young pretty girl.”